Review: The Last of Us: Remastered

I thought that rather than repeating myself and re-treading the same ground from my review of The Last of Us on PS3m I will simply let you peruse the original review at your own leisure. For the review of The Last Of Us: Remastered I have decided to cover the abundance of additions and features that accompany the release.

The Last of Us: Remastered was formally revealed earlier in April this year, being described as a vast improvement on the original and taking full potential of the PS4. They certainly lived up to their word.

The remaster comes to you at an improved 60 frames per second, and a full high definition 1080p resolution – an improvement over the Playstation 3’s 30 frames per second and 720p resolution. I was blown away at just how good the game looked, often staring at the screen and basking in the game’s glorious beauty. Even my partner, as she wandered by the screen every so often, commented “Wow! There really is a massive improvement”.

There is also the option to have the frame rate locked to 30fps just to compare the improvements for yourself. I tried this for a while for the purpose of this review. Although purists of the game may be more inclined to lock the frame rate as having it unlocked can still experience slight frame rate issues. Very rarely though, I should mention.

The character models have been fine tuned, receiving some extra attention to detail, rendering the characters close to movie quality. The game also takes advantage of the PS4’s share features, allowing players to take photos in the new “Photo Mode”, of which we’ve provided some screenshots here. Allowing the more creative of us to generate some absolutely breathtaking captures. Below is one of my favorites that I captured in game.

The detail of the smallest things such as teeth or even individual hairs in a beard are as vivid and as real as a video game can get. What makes this even more magnificent is that the foundations were obviously taken from a PS3 so the room for improvement in the new generation of consoles should leave any gamer excited for what may come. Shadow textures received an overhaul adding a smoother outline and the lighting system has received some improvement adding more depth to the game. Particularly noticeable as you allude your enemies in some very intense stealth segments.

The Dualshock 4 has been taken full advantage of using the light bar to display your characters health by the appropriate colorings green to red. The touch pad is used to access the crafting system and collectible menus. I feel the Dualshock 4 greatest contributions come in the form of the inbuilt speaker and trigger allocations. The speaker clicks on and off when using Joel’s flashlight as well as playing certain audio files found in game. The original game used the Dualshock 3’s L1 and R1 as the aim and trigger, which can now be kept as intended or switched to the more natural contours of the Dualshock 4’s L2 and R2. I was beyond pleased when I stumbled upon feature, as undoubtedly Naughty Dog were more than conscious of the awkward triggering placement of the Dualshock 3 and rectified it splendidly.

Throughout the span of its development The Last of Us received some great additional extras in the form of single player story addition “Left Behind” which prequels the games story by roughly three to four weeks. You can check out our review for it here! This comes to you included on the remastering for free (You can even play it first if you really want, although I would advise against it for story cohesion). It is once again another brilliant piece of work from Naught Dog and compliments the main game perfectly.

Whilst the single player was praised by many, the multiplayer was severely undercooked and praised by the small amount of people who took the time to play it. Taking the struggles of the post pandemic world and placing that weight on your shoulders as you fight for your survival and the survival of your group; with loads of customizations and hours to be spent it certainly is a great treat. Running more than fluently in the above mentioned presentational settings. More downloadable maps and trophies are again included on disc for the competitive inclined. expect to grind out a tonne of hours though.

The inclusion of this games toughest mode “Grounded” will have completionists going for hours; offering gamers the opportunity to tackle this brilliant game with basically no assistance, no HUD and a relentlessly punishing A.I. Good luck to you if you choose to venture into this mode.

During the breath-taking cut scenes you can toggle on and off to hear some amazing commentary about the game. Creative Director Neil Druckmann and voice stars Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson who play Joel and Ellie respectively, talk about the game and experiences they had during this games development.